


"Others"

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Category: Hannibal (TV), Nochnoy Dozor | Night Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko
Genre: Blood Drinking, Forbidden Love, M/M, Scenting, Supernatural Creatures, Vampires, Werewolves, night watch AU, supernatural settings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 14:43:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2392139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"You're tense,” he notes, head tilted once more, eyes warm when they look on Will properly. From this position, there is barely a height difference, just the weight behind them suggesting the years between them that stretch infinite.</i>
</p>
<p>  <i>“You’re agitated,” Will responds, shifting neither towards nor away from the non-touch that leaves a misty sensation against his skin. It’s a retort and an explanation both, and Hannibal hums.</i></p>
<p>Based in the Night Watch universe found in the books by Sergei Lukyanenko.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Others"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gillyinthecity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gillyinthecity/gifts).



> Another [commission](http://wwhiskeyandbloodd.tumblr.com/donate), this time for the lovely [gillyinthecity](http://gillyinthecity.tumblr.com/), who requested a vampire!Hannibal, werewolf!Will AU, that went something like this: "Hannibal and Will are supernatural murder husbands, Hannibal being an incredibly old vampire who has enough protection to walk in some light, and Will being guilty of his gift. He is able to change at will but cannot avoid a change at full moon."
> 
> We kept as much in as we could with the word count (we have a tendency to be verbose, you know us well) and a lot is implied. Because of this, we have included extensive notes at the bottom to make a lot more make sense for those who have not read or seen Night Watch or Day Watch (pro tip: read them instead ;))
> 
> Gilly, you are amazing, thank you so much for your commission. We really hope it's to your liking!
> 
> Based, also, on this incredible [piece of art.](http://hannidoodles.tumblr.com/post/76426091207/sun-to-sirius-pankoshak-hannibal-night)

Fingers uncurling to adjust against the paper cup, Will takes a sip of the coffee that’s nearly too hot to hold, let alone drink with more than a quiet slurp.

He should break the habit. A couple weeks without and he’d hardly miss it. Maybe feel less on edge, not so much of that acid burn of anxiety against his tongue, building as the coffee vanishes, and as day stretches shadows into night.

He takes another sip, and watches as the thin spire of black lengthens from the streetlight towards the toe of his boot He doesn’t move, this a ritual in and of itself, waiting on the third square of pavement south from the corner with the old metalworks factory, until the sun sets deep enough that the shadow touches it. Earlier and earlier it passes over that boundary, as the weather chills from autumn into winter, and earlier and earlier Will rises to ensure he is there and ready to cross with it.

There are a lot of habits he should break.

And when the line is crossed, the sun cut in half by the horizon, he knows that he’s not the only one. The cool breeze that prickles across his skin doesn’t move his hair or tug at his clothes, a motionless thing that sends a shiver up his spine, as though the temperature around Will fell suddenly by tangible degrees. He cradles the cheap corner coffee in both hands and takes another sip before reluctantly setting it aside.

With a sigh, Will turns towards his own darkness, thrown back against the ground and arching up onto the side of the factory from the scarlet spotlight of the setting sun. It tugs at him, pressure against his chest like in an elevator, a roller coaster if he lets it move too quickly.

Control.

The shadows join, a pull of one towards the other, spreading like spilled ink across the cement. Will watches, a chill wind against his back, and runs a hand through his hair as though to simulate the breeze that never arrives to move it. He steps past the square where he’s waited so many times before, and into his Shadow, shivering as the gloom wraps around him and the world pales to shades of grey.

“Hello, doctor.”

A mere name only, for the thing that waits.

Everything becomes itself, in the Twilight, as safe as it is honest, the space between Dark and Light. Teeth to teeth here, ashes to ashes, dark to dark.

It curls like tendrils, smoke or dark blood in the water, a shape, certainly, but faceless, nameless, just a cold presence, sensation. It is because of this that Will had thought the Call had physical form for many months of his training, for a lot of his life.

The tendrils shift, coil, seep along the ground towards where Will stands but never touch him. Instead they manifest into a silhouette, like sand falling from an hourglass, higher and faster and taller, until it shifts, the silhouette, tilts, and eyes too red to be human open within and it slowly sighs away.

"Wolf,” comes the accented response. "Lingering too close to your border. The jurisdiction of your Watch will hold power only in darkness, and yet you always come when day remains. Born the wrong species, I fear, the curiosity will kill you someday."

Sharpened yellow eyes meet ones smoldering like embers and Will glances away, a slight shift to lift his chin and breathe in the thick wind that coils around them as the movement of the sun slows nearly to stoppage.

"You're in a mood."

A thin line of steam from his cup twists upward so languorously that it might as well be stilled, and Will glances back to the vampire, growing as though made of steam himself, fog and cloud. It forms over him, overlaid against his human body, tall and broad-shouldered, as though a film were played flickering against him. Curving over him, a monstrously tall, limbs that drift and form into shapes that Will can never quite determine. He wonders how Hannibal sees him when they come together like this.

A changing of the guard. A passing-by. A meeting.

Whatever this is.

At least the coffee will still be hot by the time they're done.

"I don't come bearing any jurisdiction yet," Will shrugs, ignoring the sensation of new muscles beneath his skin, felt so rarely and almost always in this place. "The day is mine to walk in, no matter where you think I should walk instead. We've talked about this."

A smile, one that seems to slice his face entirely in half before that flickers and Will sees his lips have not moved at all, just his eyes, narrowed briefly and amused. It has been months now, these meetings, barely a minute in the life they both walk daily, nightly, and hours long within the Twilight. Since Will had called, flashlight held aloft and voice carrying the bare hint of a growl, "Night Watch! Step out of the Twilight!" and, miraculously, he had.

Laws were laws, but Will has learned since that Hannibal does not apply them to himself often, if at all.

"We've talked of many things, in our conversations, Will." Voice gentled, now, whatever had possessed him before to be cruel has slid into the formless shadow that surrounds him.

"It was you who told me of your fear and shame regarding your gifts. I who consoled you that the one thing we all have in common, Dark, Light, human, Other, is the gift and power of choice. And we are defined by how we use that."

A step, just one, and Hannibal stands closer. Were he to lift his hand it would brush against Will’s cheek but he doesn’t. Cannot. Instead, a shadow curls forward, part of the Twilight, not of dark, immune to talismans and commands of power, slips through Will's hair and shifts it like a breeze before fading like smoke.

"You're tense,” he notes, head tilted once more, eyes warm when they look on Will properly. From this position, there is barely a height difference, just the weight behind them suggesting the years between them that stretch infinite.

“You’re agitated,” Will responds, shifting neither towards nor away from the non-touch that leaves a misty sensation against his skin. It’s a retort and an explanation both, and Hannibal hums.

“The moon was full last night. If I had not seen it myself, I would smell its residue on your skin.”

Will glances towards him at the taunt, brow lifting. “You shouldn’t have seen it yourself. Is this a confession?”

The fog around him, darkens, swells and unfurls upwards with his amusement, a laugh made visible rather than something so ordinary as one that could be heard.

“You carry no jurisdiction,” Hannibal reminds him.

“Yet,” grins Will, but he falters, knows his teeth are sharp in his mouth, too long still, the transparency of a predator flickering over him, where Hannibal wears his centuries. Will presses a hand over his mouth as though to rub his beard, overgrown and full.

“You smell of blood,” Hannibal continues. “Did you fight?”

“A confession?”

“No.”

“No,” Will answers him. “My own blood, maybe.”

“Then perhaps that is why,” Hannibal notes, without explanation. “Your fur, damp with the rain that fell, the earth beneath your paws. It is extraordinary to feel it on you so recently passed, and yet so close to the surface. Was it a difficult Lunacy, wolf?”

The name tugs a sigh from Will, uncoiling from deep in the tension of his belly to float past his lips, pale grey.

“I controlled it,” he murmurs. A glance towards the sun, to measure their time yet remaining, seconds passed in that world, minutes in the Twilight. “I’m learning to, I went far out and I ran until I could hardly drag myself home again.”

Will pauses and snorts, a bitter amusement. “Earned myself a night off for good behavior.”

"Clever boy." A murmur, and Hannibal seems almost closer without having moved, perhaps Will had moved. Perhaps he was swaying, hypnotized by the hum of the Call despite his claim he is entirely unaffected by it. 

The shadow swells and Hannibal turns his head, regarding the sun as Will had been. Low enough now not singe him, merely a discomfort were he to step from the Twilight willingly.

"Would that I could taste you,” he murmurs, thoughtful, a caress now, not a threat as it once had been, as it was deliberately was, having tasted the young wolf against his skin during a fight he had not been involved in. Merely passing by. In the shadows.

_Crawford, who is he?_

"Good that you cannot," Will snaps back, hand sliding to the back of his neck to rub there, tension and nervousness both. An entirely charming human mannerism that Hannibal notes Will deliberately keeps while in the Twilight. Retaining a humanity he has never truly possessed but always protected.

More's the pleasure.

"You cannot lie to me here," Hannibal points out softly, tendrils cool over Will’s skin as he sighs and closes his eyes to it. They curl over a small gem, glowing as yellow as Will’s eyes when he lets them, when he embraces what he is, and instantly dissipate before it, crackle with electricity and retreat. Hannibal's jaw works and he turns to watch Will properly.

"Will."

“And you can’t touch me here,” Will replies after too long a hesitation, too long spent in the cool mist that curls around him still. He watches it, sentient, an extension of the man - no, the Other - that unfurls eager and dark around Hannibal, and lifts his hand through it. A simple watch to human eyes, but here it glows, flickering like a candle from the small gem inlaid in it, and Will allows a soft smile as the fog recoils and parts from the sweep of his hand.

“Do you think it would change me?” he asks, eyes reflecting golden bright in the gloom. “It wouldn’t.”

“It could not,” Hannibal corrects him. “You have made your choice to accept the day rather than the night. No more could the moon glow at noon or the sun burn at midnight.”

Will nods, stretches his neck in a gesture more feral than he would prefer, and runs his tongue beneath his lips, against his teeth. He can almost taste the blood there, the saliva that ran dripping down a snarling maw. Nervous tension in the swipe of a shadowy tail, in ears that flick listening through the murk of slowed time.

“Choices,” Will echoes. “There are always choices.”

He draws his hand back, and with still-human fingers unclasps the watch from around his wrist. The Twilight surges nearer him, shot through with veins of the darkness that rises behind Hannibal.

The watch falls to the ground, beside the cup of coffee steaming slow in the world they stand between.

“Would that you could taste me,” Will whispers.

It's immediate, the darkness, almost frighteningly so, but Will can still see, eyes still catch what bare light there is and reflect yellow like beacons in the fog. He can feel the smoke closer, gentle, silken as it envelopes him entirely, shields him from prying eyes on any plane but Dark.

"Foolish boy to throw Geser's gift so thoughtlessly away." It's a hiss, around Will, through him almost, as the black swirls like ink, coils around his throat and lifts his chin, made physical without the talisman keeping it away.

"I told you I had a night off," Will murmurs, despite a shudder that shakes him so roughly that it draws a huff of laughter from the Other. "To do as I please, they said. You know how we are - bound to our words."

"He'll know," Hannibal whispers, materializing so close that Will can't help the bare gasp of surprise and Hannibal has to smile. His teeth, Will has noticed, are naturally sharp, fangs without fangs. No need for show, with silly pop culture vampirism that feeds from neither lore nor good imagination. Will draws his own lips back in a snarl on instinct and Hannibal clicks his tongue.

"They should have better defined what they meant."

A frustration in his tone, from the mistrust that has him wear the damn thing anyway, no more meant as protection for him than locking him in a prison would be. Meant, rather, to keep him away from the Dark that they assume him drawn toward, inevitably.

He could laugh for the irony of it.

"What an extraordinary creature you are, Will," he tells him, ducking his head to draw in a slow deliberate breath against the curve of Will's shoulder, up to his neck. They still don't touch, not yet. Will won't be the first to give in after all this time.

The watch is within reach, if he were quick enough to grasp it, a gamble, but the creature would dissipate in an instant if he could. It's a cold comfort, and barely even that compared to the sensation of Hannibal so dangerously near after so long.

Hannibal's breath shifts Will's hair as he takes in the scent of him, intoxicating, and Will presses a hand against his face, feeling the muzzle beneath it formed in fog.

"No different than any other shifter, doctor."

A hum, agreement perhaps, but no voice to confirm that, and this time Hannibal does bring a hand up to touch Will, cupped just above his skin, feeling the warmth there before finally pressing against it, feeling Will shiver intensely from the cold. A bright flame of red, so deep in Hannibal’s eyes it could be a reflection, and he exhales a deliberate breath.

"Far from what others are, Will," he sighs, and through parted lips Will can see his teeth change, in fog or without it, he has seen it before but it has never been so mesmerizing. He does not let them grow to full hunting length, draws his top lip in a snarl before that settles and meets Will’s eyes carefully, close as they are.

"You are a thing born of darkness, Will, you answer to the moon, you thrive and hunt and feel your blood pulse heat against your skin in darkness, but you chose, willingly, knowingly, to defy that. To forgo your speed, your power, your hunger, for Light. For them."

It's so soft, a culmination of so many words and so many hours, meeting like this, at first with gun drawn and lips back as Hannibal had considered the pup before him, then calmer, more and more as Will had come on his own, here, to talk, to listen.

"I know your race, I've seen them. Long ago when kings would fortify their own egos behind the power of a wolf, when they would stop a hunt out of respect for their captain, or their friend."

Closer now, so close Will should feel his breath but he has none, no working lungs, no beating heart, and yet the emulation of breathing, the grotesque game... Will makes a sound he cannot help, brings his hands to settle against the fabric of Hannibal’s shirt, just as cold as the hand against his face.

"I know the time they were culled," Hannibal continues, voice lower, eyes hooded, catching Will’s and holding him mesmerized, "burned and slaughtered for fear of plague and famine, for fear of misfortune and the displeasure of a God that does not fear you, or them, or any other."

Hannibal blinks, sees the muzzle pulled long, beautiful gray and brown and black, a young wolf, healthy, curious and strong. A mortal enemy of any of Hannibal’s kind by any folklore and yet they stand, joined, surrounded by the swirling chaos of Hannibal’s mind.

"You are the last of your kind, Will," he breathes. "You are a remarkable boy."

Will lifts a hand, slow as the sun crawling in inches towards the horizon, and sinks it deeply into Hannibal's hair, slips it back through the soft strands and wonders how many hands over centuries have passed through it the same way, the Call begging them onward, to yield and to give. His lip twitches, a snarl quickening in his throat, a growl that begs behind clenched teeth grown sharp in the dimming Twilight. The sense of power, of eminence overwhelms Will, a prestige that overbears him in his youth, so especially new compared to this one, grown otherworldly in the passage of time.

"France," Will whispers, his voice harshened as he speaks of history he has only ever heard told, to one who lived it. "Run out after the monarchy fell, little need for the bodyguards of nobles, and guilty by association, anyway. To the States, then, south. Louisiana, given new names and new stories."

He draws a sudden breath, so cold it burns his lungs to hold it there, and presses his forehead to Hannibal's, eyes locked and hand sliding to grasp the back of the man's neck. Every instinct in him wants to rend and tear, snap and flee, no moral righteousness here for either in this in-between where both exist and neither do for the minute, the hour they share in passing.

"So now the Light," he murmurs, tilting his chin, a nuzzle, nose pressed wet and cold beside Hannibal's own, "in lieu of kings."

Both would deny that they moved first, accuse the other if their own kind saw it happen, unsure until the moment their mouths meet whether they will spill blood against the ground, or this.

Whatever this is.

Heaviness, airlessness, heat and shivering and teeth. Two wild creatures, hunters, killers, predators, pressed so intimately together, now. Hannibal’s hands slip to hold Will close, press to his back, his hips, as around them the darkness grows thicker still, closes in until Will turns his head to breathe, and Hannibal snares him back to bite, break the skin of his bottom lip and taste the boy again.

_Crawford, who is he?_

_Zavulon's. Lower your weapon._

_I called him as the Watch._

_And he has never come before, willingly. Leave him be._

Into shadows he had vanished then, back to the Twilight and his smoke and silence, and he had watched the young wolf grow, develop his skill, control his changes, manipulate them for the Watch.

A strong boy, a powerful, beautiful thing.

He is a slave to him, now, tremors through Hannibal's otherwise stoic form, eyes closed and lips parted to not do the boy undue harm.

"You plague me, William, what am I to do?" he whispers. 

Will’s blood is so bright here it nearly glows, luminous as rubies running in a thin trail from bitten lip onto his chin as a rueful smile curves his lips. It tastes of green grasses and sun-warmed earth, animal musk and human sweat, a single extraordinary lifetime contained in drops of scarlet.

Breathless, Will turns towards the sun, three-quarters vanished into the darkness, and sighs a single note of laughter as his pulse beats a fierce rhythm through his veins.

“Whatever you’re going to do,” Will murmurs, tracing his fingers through the blood on his lip, “do it quick.”

No mind is given to the breath Will needs to sustain him, stolen gasping from between their lips, from Hannibal who has no need for it at all. His rough tongue draws up the trail on his chin, his mouth closes to suck against the tear already stitching itself closed again, and Will’s eyes roll closed at the sensation. To feel so desired, so needed, so entirely necessary to sustain this creature that ensnares him in arms and night, is to feel a grander sense of power than Will might ever have imagined.

Hannibal has had creatures sustain him before, never for long. At first because he was young, he was needy, starving and eager to suck living things dry. Later because it was customary. Everyone had a boy or a girl to feed from. They never lived long, poor things. Mortal lives too short, bodies too weak, lack of sun making them sickly and exhausted, expiring when they were fed on and pouring the cloying sickness of death into their taste.

And then he had had no one. Preferring to survive in a more cultured manner. Cooked meals. Company. Enough, certainly, to keep himself mobile if not fully fed. It was a hunger he could control, a hunger no longer used as a weapon for others to manipulate, but one just as savage and just as strong to seek his own needs when necessary.

But Will...

Will has been on his tongue since the moment he had stepped free into the young man's torch light, the moment he had tasted his blood fresh from a fight as Will had been pulled away by his Watch to be patched up, to recover.

And now he has him again, close and hot and alive and entirely willing, and Hannibal allows himself to succumb to it, to him.

Teeth drag soft over Will’s neck as the shadow creature shivers and twists its ears away, eyes narrowed, instincts burning to hold himself so still.

"You will let me?" It is as much a question as a glamor, though he doubts he needs to shed that veil of cold lies over Will to keep his mind calm and his body still.

Will feels the voice slip over him and snorts, clearing the pale grey snout that forms out of mist and fades again. "That won't work here," he warns him, tone shortened with the tension in his throat, a hard swallow that - head tilted - bares his neck like a banquet.

He grasps, a hand against Hannibal's throat, the other arm slung across his shoulders - a lover bent beneath another, warriors struggling for dominance - and closes his eyes. It is frowned upon to yield to such base cravings on mortals, punishable against an Other, let alone from the opposing Watch.

They would have their hides for this, and Will huffs a barking laugh against Hannibal's neck. An eternity in the Twilight awaits them both, and in the moment, it seems all too appropriate.

"Do it."

The bite is harsher than it would be on another, will heal quick and scarless as Will’s body responds, but Hannibal savors it as he takes it now, a worship of the gift he's given, gratitude for it. He makes a sound, soft, gentle against Will and holds him still, feels his heart, hears his blood as it hums in his ears, against his lips, through his own veins.

Intoxicating, fascinating, entirely unreal, and it is gratifying beyond words to hear Will echo the sound as a moan just against Hannibal’s ear.

He could drink him dry, this strong, righteous warrior of Light, it would take longer but it could be done. He could end him, take away his power to fight back, teach him the stupidity of throwing his protection away. He should. Yet Hannibal finds his teeth retracted, his lips poised over the bite to seal it cleanly. Finds the heat of Will filling him to warm him to his touch and turns his head, catches Will's eyes if briefly, and blinks the yellow from his own to return them to red.

Will shivers at the sight, and closes his eyes, tucking his head against Hannibal’s neck. It is utter foolishness, all of this, to have sought Hannibal again, to have entertained his questions in their passing, to come early, stay late, let another minute slip by that here would afford them an hour of time unhampered to speak in curiosities and whispers. Foolish to leave his talisman on the ground so far from where his hands now instead curl in Hannibal’s coat, foolish to be here, like this, dizzied by the desire for more rather than frantic with the ferocity he knows he should have, as Hannibal strengthens, and Will weakens.

“Doctor,” Will gasps, clinging to Hannibal as the steady suck vines up his spine from deep in his belly. Touching alone, after so long, would have been enough, but this, Will curses, shoving himself against Hannibal who holds him fast. This is something else entirely.

He will sustain the Other for days and days, fill him warm and flushed rather than leave him to his wan pallor, and Will’s lips against his neck warm to the movement of blood through him, leaving his own mark sucked there that will heal just as quickly. He moans gently, to feel the ichor in Hannibal’s veins displaced by his own instead.

And Hannibal lets him, settles his hand against Will’s head like a blessing and curls his fingers through the soft fur there, that melds to hair and back again, just as silken, just as warm. The smoke flutters around them, still shielding, still sturdy despite how shaken both feel from the ordeal, how frightening and frustrating such a connection is between them.

"You know what happened in Moscow," Hannibal murmurs, "We both know how this ends, how it will."

He doesn't say how it should. It shouldn't. So much of what they do shouldn't. Not lives or truces, battles and manipulations, killings and corruptions on both sides, there is only so much Zavulon and Geser can do between them.

Hannibal holds Will close like the most precious thing in the world.

Hannibal is younger, now, less fearsome, softer curves to his cheeks, a rosy flush. Alive, suddenly, as alive as Will and just as full of Light.

Will's Light, he knows, but he shakes the thought away and pushes his fingertips against Hannibal's mouth. Ducking his head, he kisses him once, around his fingers, again, his other hand sliding to press to the flat of Hannibal's back to keep him near.

"We'll be found out."

"Yes," Hannibal murmurs, kissing the dark punctures against Will's neck, to feel the skin reform beneath him.

"Declared traitors."

"Yes."

"Executed."

"Yes."

Will turns a little, and pushes his nose against Hannibal's cheek so ardently he turns his head to the side. Hannibal allows it, and Will murmurs against his skin.

"And then we're in the Twilight, aren't we? As though we'd never left."

"You are a creature of the Dark," Hannibal insists, and Will swears he nearly hears a laugh behind his words. He is lovely this way. Lovely enough that Will can nearly forget the fading sun behind them, and the spiraling darkness of Hannibal's Other self growing monstrous behind him.

Kind, and curious, and tender.

So long as he's fed.

Will certainly moves first this time, and crushes their mouths roughly together. As Hannibal had his fill, so Will may enjoy his. He grasps Hannibal's hair in his fingers, bends him to bare his neck, grinning crooked at how readily Hannibal' moves for him, how human the sounds of pleasure despite the lack of breath to carry them. 

Another bite but no broken skin, a claiming, this, like pressing the weakest of the pack down to remind them of their place, while fighting just as fiercely beside them not moments later. And Hannibal submits to this, goes willingly, the slave already to Will’s blood, to his life, to his curiosity and juxtaposition of everything he is.

A motion, what should have been a motion, what instead is almost flight, and Will finds his knuckles grazing the rough brick of the building just on the corner where he had set his cup and talisman. The shift enough to jar him for a moment, before he finds that his aggression now has something to sustain it, he can push, he can bend and strike and press and at worst find his knuckles bloodied.

The smoke no longer surrounds them, crawling instead behind Hannibal like a shadow, like ink or blood through lines of stone.

“I am a creature of choice,” Will growls. Hannibal’s lips tilt, enough to see his teeth again, enough to see them clean and white and as human as they will ever be.

“You’re choosing this,” whispers Hannibal, hands clasped against Will’s chest now, as Will had held to him, positions reversed, in every sense. Over Will’s shoulder, the sun is barely visible, just moments more and there will be a flash of green, so rarely seen by human eyes, as it sinks below the horizon and their shaky, dangerous truce will end.

For this hour.

For this night.

"Yes," snarls Will, tucking his head beneath Hannibal's chin. "And that makes it mine to share with whoever I want."

A confession, now, truth known but never spoken.

Will's body surges, a sudden strength in the instant of surprise that Hannibal allows him. He turns, resting heavy against Hannibal, pinning him gently to the wall with kisses open-mouthed and hot against Hannibal's throat. His blood, rolling through veins that have forgotten how to move it, the body of a man who does not have to allow this, could end Will at his leisure as the last traces of the sun glimmer against the dark city.

But he does not lash out.

Does not push Will away.

Choices.

He curls his fingers through Will's hair, feels fur in its place instead, scratches high to where transparent wolfish ears angle their attention on Hannibal wholly. With a low sound, Will ducks his head and pushes his nose through Hannibal's hair, snuffling deeply against him, exhaling in a warm huff.

Scenting him, to remember how it feels to be so near.

A reminder for Hannibal as well.

A promise.

The last few seconds of the semblance of freedom both allow themselves before the sun sets, and the cool shadows wrap around them both like wings and fade entirely, taking Hannibal with them.

Will stays, forehead pressed to the rough, cool brick before him, hands clasped to fists on either side. He breathes, eyes closed and heart pounding, feels the wound fully close in his neck, feels his wolf form stretch and twist in the aftermath of the pleasure felt.

He calls up his Shadow without much thought and steps through, the evening just as cool around him, his coffee still steaming on the sidewalk, untouched, the talisman beside it. And on the lip, just close enough to the steam, a butterfly, black wings and little curls of red.

Will watches, doesn’t approach, and the butterfly leaves on its own, a brief flutter of wings and the wind takes it higher, and then Will can’t see it anymore.

Until the changing of the Watches.

Until the sun rises and burns them clean.

**Author's Note:**

> A brief summary of the Watch series that you can read in more depth [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Watch_%28Lukyanenko_novel%29), is as follows: "The story revolves around a confrontation between two opposing supernatural groups (known as "Others"): the Night Watch, an organization dedicated to policing the actions of the Dark Others—and the Day Watch, which polices the actions of the Light Others."
> 
> In short, each Watch has creatures or gifted humans who work to keep the balance and the peace around humanity (and each other). Honestly, it's a lot more in depth than that but that is a story for another night, children.
> 
> We have made Hannibal a vampire who is simply an Other, he is not part of the Watch. He may roam freely at night (or day, really) as long as no harm comes to humans or no conflicts are started. We made Will a werewolf/shapeshifter for the Night Watch (meaning he polices those like Hannibal at night). To make it a little simpler, think Romeo and Juliet, these two are not supposed to mingle, let alone do what they do. Now, technical terms:
> 
> _The Twilight_ \- thankfully nothing to do with sparkly vampires, the Twilight is described as being a space just beneath the skin of reality. Imagine standing in an almost grayscale room while around you life goes on very... freaking... slowly... The Twilight is a place most of the Others take their conflicts, because humans have no idea where it is, can't enter it, and usually can't feel it. To get there, one needs to call up -  
>  _[His] Shadow_ \- this is quite literally a shadow door, through which you get into the Twilight.  
>  _Geser_ \- leader (in as much as there can be) of the Light, based, by book canon, in Moscow with the Moscow division, there was no other (or Other, rather) named that was higher than him bar one, but we did not bring him into this.  
>  _Zavulon_ \- leader (in as much as there can be) of the Dark, also based in Moscow, he and Geser are very civil, actually, and they converse often.  
>  (just to make it clear, being close to either of these two means you are either very powerful, very suspicious or very important for something)
> 
> Some more general explanations:
> 
> _"What was that talisman thing?"_ \- think of it as a ward against Dark, as it were, which is why Hannibal cannot touch it. Geser gave it to Will since - considering his gifts - it is very strange for him to choose the Light. File under 'suspicious' and 'to be monitored'.  
>  _"Yea, what was that whole choice thing?"_ \- if you are an Other (either gifted with shapeshifting or magic or are a human who has the ability to see and interact with Others) you have to make a choice which Watch or side, you are going to show your allegiance to. This, however, is always described as entirely the character's choice, but once it's made, it cannot be unmade.  
>  _"What happened in Moscow?"_ \- this is one of the main plots of book 2 of the Watch series, but in short, a Light and Dark other fell in love and one was condemned by courts of both sides to be dissolved into the Twilight as the ultimate punishment. The other joined their other half and chose the same fate.  
>  _"Butterflies? Really?"_ \- yes! Believe it or not, butterflies were considered symbols for vampires in some cultures because butterflies represent souls, and the souls of vampires have not flown to heaven, so they linger.  
>  _"What kind of butterfly is Hannibal?"_ \- [this kind!](http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/butterflyguide/images/parides_montezuma_big.jpg) A Cattleheart, Montezuma, or _Parides montezuma_


End file.
